Wild Pigs

Billigiri Rangan Betta - BR Hills - beckoned us like never before. Promptly Anil & me made an appearance, after close to 7 hrs of travel from B'lore. And that included a broken Volvo bus, a jeep that threatened to breakdown any moment in the ghat sections, via Mysore & Chamrajnagar. Jungle lodges at Kyathrayana Gudi - K Gudi - was our base. They have a nice library. And soon after lunch, we just hung in front of our huts. Looking for flowers, staring at the green vegetation, distant hills, and waiting for something to happen.

Suddenly from my left came these black figures, sloth bears ?? nope.....wild boars!!!!!! I stood transfixed, clicking, trying to get the frames right, and not moving much.

As I choose the pics for uploading, felt the green vegetation looked boring, so I played around swapping the RGB colors, now...behold the magic!

Some fundas:

• Pigs live in groups called sounders
• Female pig is called sow
• You may know this, kids pigs are called piglets ;-))
  
  

Ah...there they are...the piglets are light brown with pale stripes, the stripes last 6-7 months. The adults weighing close to 100 kg, have a black mane (hair sticking out from the head to tail on top of the body), you can notice it in these snaps.

They live/move in groups - the sow & her piglets - Adult male joins during the breeding season. They first fight for sow, and once victorious they male froths at the mouth or produces lip pheromones to attract the sow. The sow gestates for 100 days. And may bear a litter of upto 12 piglets (a rare thing amongst hoofed animals).

At this point, the pigs were closest to me, I wasn't hiding anywhere, and this chap noticed me, and made his/her displeasure very clear. It stared at me...and grunted....waited for a few seconds...the rest of the clan stayed still....and having warned me, got back to business.

They had their noses to the ground - have a stronge sense of smell - as they foraged. I moved to my binocs & watched them for sometime untill they disappeared behind a hill. It is so satisfying watching wild animals in their natural habitat. I look forward to see them again, the adult males with erect manes fighting amongst themselves, and the female cooly watching the show!